Lost on the Moon, Roy Rockwood [best reads of all time .txt] 📗
- Author: Roy Rockwood
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I wish you no harm, but I must keep you here.
“I will feed you well before I go, and put some water where you can get
it. But I must leave you tied. I’ll not gag you, for, no matter how you
yell, no one will hear you. I have posted a notice in front of this
place that it is under the watch of the police, so no tramps will
venture in, and your friends will not come back.
“Now, just make yourself comfortable here, and I’ll go to the moon in
your place. I think I shall enjoy the trip. As I said, you will be
released to-morrow night, several hours after the projectile has left
the earth.”
“How do you know it is to start to-morrow morning?” asked Mark.
“Oh, I have been spying around, and I overheard the professors talking.
I know a thing or two, and I’ll be on hand, on time, in your place!
Now, I have to leave you. I’ve left ten dollars to pay for your suit,
which I need to disguise myself with.”
Then the man was gone, and Mark was left with his bitter thoughts to
keep him company. The whole daring scheme of the man had been revealed.
He did look something like Mark, and, attired in the lad’s clothes, and
by keeping his face concealed, he might pass himself off as Jack’s
chum; at least, until after the projectile had started.
“And then, as he says, it will be too late to return to earth and get
me,” thought Mark bitterly. “Oh, why did I ever try to learn this man’s
secret? Who is he, anyhow? Why didn’t I wait for Jack at the barn, as I
promised? It’s all my fault. I wonder if I can’t get loose?”
Mark struggled several hours desperately and at last he felt the ropes
giving slightly. He redoubled his efforts. Strand by strand the cords
parted. He put all his efforts into one last attempt, and to his great
joy he felt his hands separate. He was partly free!
But scarcely half his task was accomplished. He had yet to discover the
secret of the hidden room—a room, as he afterward learned, which had
been built during slavery days to conceal the poor black men who were
escaping from the South.
“But now I have my hands to work with!” exulted Mark.
Resting a bit after his strenuous labors, he took a long drink of water
and attacked the ropes on his feet. They were comparatively easy to
loosen, and soon he stood up unbound.
“Now for the secret panel!” he exclaimed, for he was convinced that it
was by some such means that his captor had entered and left. As has
already been explained, Mark knew on which side of his prison the
opening was likely to be—it would be where the warning knocks had
sounded. He began a minute inspection of that wall.
But if Mark hoped to speedily discover the secret he was doomed to
disappointment. He went over every inch of the surface, seemingly, and
pressed on every depression or projection that met his eye, as he
passed the candle flame along the wall.
Success did not reward him, and, as hour after hour passed, and the
candle burned lower and lower, Mark began to despair.
“I must escape before the projectile leaves,” he murmured. “It will
never do to let them take that man with them under the impression that
they have me. I must escape! I will!”
Once more he began the tiresome task of seeking the secret spring. The
candle was spluttering in the socket now. It would burn hardly another
minute. Desperately Mark sought.
At last, just as the candle gave a dying gasp and flared brightly up
prior to going out, the lad saw a small screw head he had not noticed
before. It was sunk deep in a board.
“I’ll press that and see what happens!” he exclaimed.
With a suddenness that was startling, he found himself in total
darkness. The candle had burned out, but he had his finger on the
screw. He pressed it with all his force.
There was a rumbling sound in the darkness, a movement as if some heavy
body had slid out of the way, and Mark felt a breath of air on his
cheeks. Then he saw a dim light.
“Oh, I’m out! I’m out!” he cried joyously, breathing a prayer of
thankfulness at his deliverance. “I’m free! I pushed on the right
spring, and the panel slid back!”
He fairly leaped forward. The morning light was streaming in through
the broken windows. He saw himself in the old hall of the mansion, at
the head of the stairs, in a sort of anteroom, the mantle of which
apartment had swung aside to give him egress from the secret chamber
through a hole in the wall. He was free!
“But am I in time?” he cried. “It is morning—and about ten o’clock, I
should judge. I’ve been working to get free all night. Will I be in
time?”
He gave one last look behind at his prison and sprang down the rickety
stairs. He had but one thought—to reach home in time to unmask the
villain who was impersonating him—to be in time to make the journey to
the moon.
“But it’s several miles, and I can’t walk very fast,” murmured Mark.
“I’m too stiff and weak. How can I do it?”
He thought of making his way to the nearest farm house, and asking for
the loan of a horse and carriage, but he looked so much like a tramp
that no farmer would lend him a horse.
“And I need to make speed,” he murmured.
At that moment he heard a noise down the road. It was a steady “chug-chug,” like some distant motor-boat, but there was no water near at
hand.
“A motorcycle!” exclaimed Mark. “Some one is coming on a motorcycle.
Oh, if I could only borrow it!”
He ran down into the road. He could see the rider now. To his joy it
was Dick Johnson—the lad who had brought him the mysterious note.
“Hi Dick! Dick! hold on!” cried Mark.
The lad on the motor gave one glance at the ragged figure that had
hailed him. Then he turned on more power to escape from what he thought
was a savage tramp.
“Wait! Stop! I want that motorcycle!” cried Mark.
“Well, you’re not going to get it!” yelled back Dick. “I’ll send the
police after you.”
Mark couldn’t understand. Then a glance down at his ragged garments
showed him what was the matter.
“Wait! Hold on, Dick!” he cried, running forward. “I’m Mark Sampson!
I’ve had a terrible time! I was captured by that mysterious man, and
he’s got my clothes. I must get home quick!”
Dick heard, but scarcely understood. However, he comprehended that his
friend was in trouble, and he wanted to help him. He slowed up, and
Mark reached him.
“Lend me your motorcycle, Dick,” begged Mark. “I must get home in a
hurry to unmask a scoundrel. I’ll leave your machine for you at our
house. I won’t hurt it. I’m in a hurry! Get off!”
Somewhat dazed, Dick dismounted, and Mark climbed into the saddle. He
began to pedal, and then threw in the gasolene and spark. The cycle
chugged off.
“I’ll leave it for you at our house,” Mark called back. “I’m going on a
trip to the moon, and I don’t want to be late.”
He was fast disappearing in a cloud of dust, while Dick, gazing after
him, remarked:
“Well, I always thought those fellows were crazy to go off in
projectiles and things like that, and now I’m sure of it. Going to the
moon! Well, I only hope he doesn’t take my motorcycle there!”
Mark sped on, turning the handle levers to get the last notch of speed
out of the cycle. Would he be in time?
A DIREFUL THREAT
Perhaps Washington White’s Shanghai rooster did not care to make the
trip to the moon, or perhaps the fowl had not yet seen enough of this
earth. At any rate, when he flew from the projectile, uttering loud
crows, and landed some distance away, he began to run back toward the
coop in the rear of the yard.
“Cotch him, cotch him!” yelled the colored man. “Dat’s a valuable
bird!”
“We’ll get him when he goes in the coop,” said Jack, who found it
difficult to run and laugh at the same time.
“Shall I fire my rifle off and scare him?” asked Andy Sudds.
“No, you might kill him or scare him t’ death,” objected Washington.
“Come on, Mark, and help,” cried Jack, looking toward the projectile,
where a figure was peering from the glass-covered port of the main
cabin.
But the figure, whose hand was done up in voluminous bandages, did not
come out, and Jack wondered the more at what he thought was a growing
strangeness on the part of his chum.
Jack, followed by Andy and Washington, raced off after the rooster,
while the two professors, somewhat amused, rather chaffed at the delay.
But afterward they were glad of it.
“Just my luck!” muttered the bandaged one. “This delay comes at the
wrong time. Why don’t they go on without that confounded rooster? If we
stay here too long, that fellow Mark may get loose and spoil the whole
thing, or Jenkins may go and release him before the time set. It would
be just like Jenkins! I’ve a good notion to start the projectile
myself. I know how to operate the Cardite motor. Only I suppose those
two professors are on guard in the engine room. I’ll have to wait until
they catch that rooster, I guess, but I’d like to wring his neck!”
The chase after the fowl was kept up.
“I’ve got him now!” cried Jack a little later, as the fowl, evidently
now much exhausted, ran into another fence corner, where Jack caught
him, and shut him up in the coop in the projectile.
“Yo’ suttinly am de mos’ contrary-minded specimen ob de chicken fambly
dat I eber seed,” observed Washington, breathing heavily, for his run
had winded him.
“Well, are we all ready to start now?” asked Professor Henderson. “No
more live stock loose, is there, Jack?”
“I think not.”
“Where’s Mark? Wasn’t he helping you catch the rooster?”
“No, he’s inside. Shall I seal the door?”
“Yes, and I’ll tell Professor Roumann that we’re about to start. All
ready for the moon trip!”
Jack was pulling the steel portal toward him. An eager face, peering
from a port, waited anxiously for the tremor which would indicate that
the projectile had left the earth. In another moment they would be off.
But what was that sound coming from down the highway. A steady chug-chug—a sort of roar, as of a battery of rapid-fire guns going off in
double relays! And, mingled with the explosions, there was a voice
shouting:
“Wait! Hold on! Don’t go without me! I’m Mark Sampson! Don’t start the
projectile!”
“Somebody must be in a mighty hurry on a motorcycle,” thought Jack, as
he paused a moment before fastening the door. Then the shouts came to
his ears.
“Mark Sampson!” he cried.
Again came the cry: “Wait! Wait! Don’t go without me! You’ve got that
mysterious man on board!”
“Mark Sampson!” murmured Jack again. “That’s his
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